Dexter UFO

One of the things I love most about small towns is that they have stories.

Not important history-book stories necessarily. Although sometimes those too.

I mean the stories that people just know.

The things that happened years ago that somehow become part of the personality of a place.

And Dexter has a UFO.

Seriously.

On March 20, 1966, a farmer named Frank Mannor was at his home just outside Dexter when his dogs started barking like crazy.

He went outside to see what was going on and saw something strange in the sky. Something that seemed to slow down, change colors and eventually come down near the woods behind his farm.

And suddenly, Dexter, Michigan was having a UFO situation.

And this wasn't just one guy seeing something weird and telling his neighbors about it.

There had been other reports of strange lights around Washtenaw County. Police got involved. The sheriff wanted answers. Eventually the U.S. Air Force came to investigate.

The explanation they came up with?

Swamp gas.

Which I love almost as much as I love the UFO.

Because here we are, sixty years later, and nobody is calling it The Great Dexter Swamp Gas Incident of 1966.

It's the Dexter UFO.

And I love that.

I have no idea what Frank Mannor actually saw that night. Maybe there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it.

But also...

What if there isn't?

Either way, somehow this strange night in 1966 became part of Dexter.

And that's what I love about small towns. They collect stories until the stories become part of the place itself.

That night in 1966 when something strange appeared in the sky.

Maybe it was swamp gas.

Maybe it wasn't.

I just love that it's ours.

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